Lars Schall talks with Folker Hellmeyer, one of Germany’s most outspoken senior bankers. Hellmeyer points out why he thinks it’s impossible for the US Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. Moreover, he discusses his optimism for gold and “the invisible hand” of the Plunge Protection Team.

By Lars Schall

The following interview was conducted for and originally published here by Matterhorn Asset MGMT in Zurich, Switzerland.

Folker Hellmeyer, born 1961 in Hamburg, is a banking professional who started his career as foreign exchange trader with Deutsche Bank in Hamburg (1984 – 1987) and London (1988 – 1989). From 1990 to 1995, he worked as an OTC broker in the interbank foreign exchange market at Bierbaum & Co. GmbH & Co. OHG. In 1995, he went to Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen GZ (Helaba) in Frankfurt as a senior analyst. Since April 2002, he is the chief analyst at Bremer Landesbank, where he is responsible for the Foreign Exchange and Money Market Sales department.